Genius Hour 2.6

Dungeons and Dragons: *spoilers, Allie and Hannah do not read

Greetings fellow adventurers! This week I will be detailing the most vital components of what I do to prepare for a session in the "List Post" blog format. Due to how my group's scheduling has turned out, I'll be taking this week and next week to prepare for our final session. This means that there may be some gaps in my planning with this blog, but I will be finishing up details and missed items next week.

All of the components of gameplay that I'll be detailing are intertwined, so the numbering of the list is trivial. Every aspect has its own significance.

1. Review the characters
The most important detail of my storytelling is the motivations of my characters. As such, I need to constantly be thinking of where the characters are physically, as in equipment, leveling, and actual location, and where they are in their character arc. I won't go into too much detail with this, as that will be the topic of next week's podcast.

2. Outline potential scenes
This is definitely the most intricate part of my preparation process. Some Dungeon Masters go absolutely crazy with scene options and storylines, but given that my players are relatively inexperienced they tend to go in whatever direction that I suggest. This makes my job a lot easier in the end. The final session, I'll be sending the players back to Port Swordbreak before they accompany Thess'ahlia to the final cultist stronghold. They'll have relatively free reign to explore the city and have some fun before entering the more serious combat scenarios. The party will travel through the countryside until reaching Balmoral and will battle their way through the outpost.

3. Define lore and secrets
Depending on the tone of the campaign, lore and secrets can add a lot to the narrative. However, I'm running a more combat heavy campaign so lore it not that important. Secrets can be pretty interesting for character motivations, so I'll be hiding a few things through the session in some puzzles that the characters could discover and solve.

4. Develop locations
This can be anything from dungeons, towns, or trails. I made the basics for all my locations before we started playing, so all I need to do is further develop the dungeon and the town of Balmoral. I know that Balmoral will be almost completely ravaged and destroyed, so I'll only have to create a central tavern and a few stragglers who are clinging on to hope that someone will save their town.

5. Choose relevant monsters
My absolute favorite part of planning campaigns is finding unusual monsters for my party to fight. I've mostly been choosing humanoids as enemies, but this session I will be setting up some Displacer Beasts, which are essentially magical panthers, as guard animals. Of course the cultists will be present at the stronghold.

6. Outline NPCs
I have this step mostly taken care of. I've done all of the preparation for Thess'ahlia and all NPC shopkeepers and acolytes at the Temple of Tyr and Torn. All I need to do is come up with some unimportant NPCs for the tavern in Balmoral.

7. Decide rewards
My final session will probably be the last in the campaign, so I will not have much in the way of rewards. If the party succeeds in defeating the cultists, they will gain local prestige and become folk heroes in the region.

And that's it for my basic outline! I'm doing pretty well on following my genius hour and my overall goal of learning how to plan ahead. If everything goes well, this final session should go very smoothly and prove that my skills in planning ahead have improved.